


Bruises

by battle_cat



Series: Fury Road Ficlets [8]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 12:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7222804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/battle_cat/pseuds/battle_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max gets hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruises

**Author's Note:**

> The prompts were: "I almost lost you" and "I thought you were dead."
> 
> Also inspired by [this art by YoukaiYume](http://youkaiyume.tumblr.com/post/141902203648/you-know-i-am-so-sorry-i-actually-dont-know-any).

Toast’s patrol is the one that spots the chewed-up car, sun glinting off its windshield. Furiosa sucks in a breath when they haul in the Interceptor pock-marked with bullet holes.

She freezes up when they pull him out of the car, because there’s blood, so much blood all over his shirt and hands and face. She can’t move, can’t remember how to breathe as they load him onto a stretcher.

In the infirmary she presses against the wall, head a buzzing blank hum of panic as Eves and Capable cut off his shredded shirt. He’s stuffed a bit of bandage cloth into the worst puncture wound, which must’ve hurt like hell but maybe saved him. 

He wakes up and is suddenly wild, lashing out and making Capable shriek. She finds herself by his side without realizing she’d moved. “Max, it’s okay, you’re safe.” She grabs one of his hands to keep him from hitting someone and he squeezes tight. His wild eyes skitter over her once and then latch on, and she sees some of the tension leave his muscles. Then he passes out.

“My room,” she orders when they’ve patched him up as best they can. He’s not staying in the infirmary.

Two War Boys help her settle him on her mattress, on his stomach to protect the long raw scrape on his back, and then she banishes everyone. It won’t be the first time she’s washed blood out of her sheets.

She sits on the bed beside him, carefully wiping the dried blood off his face and fighting down the gnashing feral thing trying to claw its way out of her chest.

At some point—minutes, hours, she’s lost track—he wakes up. “Hey,” he rasps, blinking up at her through the eye not swollen shut. And then she bursts into tears.

“Hey, hey,” he mutters, as if he can’t quite fathom why she’s upset. He scoots up, wincing a little, and into her lap. His hand slides under her shirt, warm against her back. His face presses against her chest, hot and sticky with blood and grime and swollen in odd places and she doesn’t care.

“I thought you were dead, you goddamned fool.” She presses her face into his hair. It smells like desert and sweat and gunpowder and fear and undeniably like him, alive.

Neither of them move. She strokes his hair and tells herself to focus on his warmth and his damp breath against her chest and his hand on her back under her shirt. The tears stop. Just a momentary jagged release of tension against her will.

“S’okay,” he soothes. She makes a noise of frustration at herself.

“Stupid. I should be comforting you.”

“You are.”

Another long moment in which neither of them say anything.

“I almost lost you,” she mutters into his hair. “Don’t wanna…feel that again.”

“I know. Me either.” His voice is a low rumble against her sternum.

“Maybe…you shouldn’t go out alone anymore,” she ventures. Because she would never tell him not to go, but…now there’s someone who cares.

“Mm,” he mumbles after a minute. “Maybe you’re right.”


End file.
